Screen-time tools for parents, caregivers, and schools 

These days, we’re all looking for ways to cut back on screen time—both for ourselves and our kids. We’ve put together a round-up of helpful screen-time resources across Canada and the United States, targeted at parents, caregivers, schools, and healthcare professionals.

From podcasts, strategies, and resource sheets to pledges, goal trackers, and templates, we hope something on this list works for your family or in your classroom. Let us know in the comments if one of these tools works for you—or if you’ve got a suggestion we should add to the list!

Centre for Healthy Screen Use

Part of the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Centre for Healthy Screen Use offers guidance for parents and health professionals and pushes for evidence-based public policy that minimizes the negative effects of screens on kids. Check out: 

• Healthy Teens podcast
• What We Heard report on digital media
• One-pagers for parents 
• Common questions about kids & screen time
• How to be an advocate for healthy screen use
• Resources for clinicians

Live 5-2-1-0

An initiative of BC Children’s Hospital, Live 5-2-1-0 promotes healthy habits in children, including physical activity, healthy eating, and limited screen time. The name encompasses: five or more vegetables & fruits every day; no more than two hours of screen time a day; one hour of active play a day; and zero sugary drinks. Live 5-2-1-0 offers some free resources to help reduce screen time: 

• Screen Aware Challenge
• Screen Aware Goal Tracker
• Digital literacy resource for teachers
• Screen time fact sheet

Appstinence.org 

As a teenager, Gabriela Nguyen was so distracted by her phone, it took her hours to finish her homework. Over the ensuing years, she tried screen-time limits and digital detoxes, but they didn’t work. She wondered if she could quit social media for good. “Once I fully walked away from these products, I found that peace that I had been looking for,” she told the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

As a Harvard master’s student—and a Gen Z—Nguyen founded Appstinence, an organization that promotes quitting social media or, as its website puts it, “refraining from using technology that is designed to be addictive.” Its resources include: 

• The 5D method (Decrease your use, deactivate accounts one by one, delete accounts, downgrade to a “dumb phone,” depart the digital world)
• Appstinence Academy, a free resource to help you kick social media to the curb. The FAQ section addresses questions young people might have about putting down their smartphone, like how to stay in touch with friends.

Canadian Psychological Association

The association offers a tip sheet for parents and caregivers to help them navigate teens and screens. 

American Academy of Pediatrics

The organization has helpful step-by-step guidance for how to create a family media plan. 

Unplugged Canada 

This parent-led movement advocates for delaying kids’ smartphone and social media use. The group has pushed for Canada to raise the age for social-media signups to 16 (it’s 13 now, but the proposed Safe Social Media Act aims to change that). Unplugged Canada also encourages parents to sign a pledge that they’ll wait until their children are 14 years old before they’ve given a smartphone. 

Unplugged Canada offers resources for starting this conversation with staff and other parents at your child’s school: 

• How to champion the pledge at school 
• A letter template for the principal
• Host a book club featuring The Anxious Generation
• How to bring back the family landline
• Smartphone alternatives

Smartphone Free Childhood USA 

This group’s mission is “to change the norms around youth digital technology use by supporting parents with connection, resources and confidence to drive collective action within their families, schools and communities.” It does this through the Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project, which pushes to change state laws on devices in schools, and resources to help families and schools. Smartphone Free Childhood also produced this excellent PSA: 

Resources for parents and caregivers: 

• How to delay smart phone use
• How to delay social media
• How to reduce tech use at home
• Info about screen use during early childhood

Resources for addressing tech in schools:

• Phone-free schools 
• Tools for legislative change (keep in mind these templates are U.S.-specific)